


we earnest and callow youth

by WhimperSoldier



Series: love my way (its a new road) [2]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, five times someone realizes about elio and oliver's relationship, plus one more, so AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 16:37:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13640157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhimperSoldier/pseuds/WhimperSoldier
Summary: It was the toothbrush that did it, placed in the little fish holder Elio’s mother had given him during of their trips back to Italy. The two toothbrushes sat right next to each other, carelessly tossed there the night before, as if they were not now going to cause Oliver to shake right out of his skin at the sight of them. It was a metaphor, it had to be, the two pieces of plastic resting together, a cosmic sign of cohabitation.





	we earnest and callow youth

**Author's Note:**

> This movie really messed me up man, so I needed some sweetness to offset the bitter, even if I have to write it myself.

Melissa found her anthropology professor both absolutely brilliant and undeniably horrible.

It was only for general education and he was only covering for a single semester, but she didn’t know what his real degree even was, only that he was quite passionate about hellenistic statues and etymology. His class was the most requested in the department, and it was obvious why. Professor _“Call Me Oliver”_ was tall, attractive, and intelligent.

Sara found him magnificent, said so every time they were both lying back in bed cooling their bodies by their open window. The summer heat caused their skin to stick together uncomfortably but gave them the excuse to lounge in bed all day, whispering between themselves.

It was she who suggested the class, a requirement filled and a reason to find why her girlfriend found such enjoyment in a subject she normally hated. But here, in the middle of a lecture on materials of carving, Melissa could see it, the explosive passion and love that went into explaining something of great emotion.

His words were light and airy, sweet with joy and a face split with a smile. His teeth were blinding white in the low light and appeared, from the second row, to be perfectly straight. Jewish, she noted the second week of classes, the small Star of David pendant partly covered by a thick ring strung about his neck on a clunky chain. His sharp jawline was heightened by the light of the projector.

It was a month into the class and the whole of the front row had fallen deeply, passionately in love with him.

It was during a particularly windy day that he came in, windblown and out of sorts, his cheeks stained a bright red and his tie haphazard, as if someone had yanked on it. Janet sighed as if in pain, huffing sadly into her hands, careful not to smear her perfectly applied red lipstick.

“Sorry, sorry!” He said, sliding his things across the table in an attempt to find the correct slides, clicking them into the machine and shutting off the lights. He launched into his speech, ignoring the fact he was over fifteen minutes late. Melissa was almost done with her drawing of the back of Jacob’s head, moving instead to sketch out the long, lean lines of the sculpture projected onto the wall.

Next slide. Janet fell asleep. Melissa moved onto adding a face to her headless drawing. She only looked up when the sound of muffled snickering echoed through the quiet room, the projector magnifying the professor in extremely short shorts, a blinding grin, and his arm around a short dark haired man. They both were standing in waist-deep water, their hair shaggy around their faces, both red with sun.

While the class good naturally poked fun at Oliver, asking where he vacationed, Melissa’s brow wrinkled in thought. She knew that boy, had seen him before, maybe a friend of the professor? Had she seen him during office hours? Maybe at the restaurant where she worked part-time?

“You have to tell us something!” Someone called, laughing good naturally. Oliver smiled, sighing and looking at the throng of adoring faces.

“Fine, one photo then back to work,” He promised, flipping through the slides too quickly for them to see anything but apparently slow enough that he knew exactly when to stop. “Here is my Mother-in-law’s orchard.”

A pretty woman was leaning against a tree ripe with peaches, she was smiling brightly. Oliver went to move on but a few girls wined and made shooing motions to his hand which hovered over the button.

“Where is this?” A boy in the back asked, leaning over his desk to better see the details.

“Italy,” Oliver answered absentmindedly, looking back at the class with surprise, as if he hadn’t meant to let that slip. Janet latched onto that.

“So your wife is Italian?” She asked, excited. The professors face fell quickly, the warmth he’d had at the picture had faded and instead of saying more, he turned the machine off and let the class out thirty minutes early.

~~~

Sandra really didn’t approve of this plan.

Sure Oliver was a sort of mystery but he was allowed to have his own secrets, goodness knows half of their department did. It was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place. If she had never kissed Roger from HR, none of her coworkers would have the dirt to blackmail her with.

She was the only one Oliver had ever invited over, even under the guise of revising his newest book. Her fingers were shaking and her heart pounded in her chest but that all faded when Oliver opened the door. Sweet, stable Oliver who was her only real friend in the whole of the school. 

“Come in, come in!” He brushed her in, jogging to the kitchen to grab her a coffee and himself a tea. She slowly took her shoes off, placing them next to a large pair of Oliver’s loafers and a smaller set of sneakers, scuffed in mud. A roommate?

“Any cream?” He asked.

“You know it!” She said back, moving to the line of photos propped up on the entryway table.

One featured Oliver pressing a warm kiss to an older woman’s cheek, the one next to it was of a scenic vista with two pairs of legs lining the bottom of the frame. Another was of a family, she recognized them as Oliver’s host family when he had stayed in Italy; she knew he had gone back every summer since to visit them. The final photo was of Oliver, loose in shorts and shirt, throwing an arm around another man, the son from the previous photo. No wedding photo.

Jake from accounting would be annoyed, he had money on a blonde bombshell wife.

It was only when she caught the photo hanging on the wall between two diplomas did she realize she knew the boy in the photo, that he had been a TA in the music department for a while, that he was the boy she caught kissing Oliver that night they had both stayed late to grade papers. Not the fling she had assumed.

She suddenly felt as if the long talk she would get for fraternizing with coworkers might be worth it rather then tell her best friend that she knew about his boyfriend because she was sent in as a spy.

It didn’t matter what she thought because just as she opened her mouth to squeal, the door opened, the door to the single bedroom in a one bedroom apartment, and out came Perlman, sleep ruffled despite it being noon on a Sunday. 

“Hello Sandra,” He said, smiling at her with warmth before grabbing the mug out of Oliver’s hand before he could round the corner. She laughed at the scene, surprised and confused but also strangely happy that someone made Oliver laugh too.

Sandra moved and took the coffee from him, ignoring the flabbergasted and betrayed look he shot the both of them as she moved the boy to the couch and asked him about Juilliard.

~~~

Sam had never heard anything more beautiful that Elio playing piano.

He would come in on weekends and sit at their beat up piano and play something breathtaking, patrons sipping their coffees and tossing dollar bills into his hat. Sometimes, if Sam was lucky, he would come up and use the money to buy something.

If he was double-lucky, he would get something that required Sam to ask him his name. It was so nice coming out of his mouth. _Elio_ , foreign but local, with just enough twang to tell he’d lived here long enough to pick it up.

He should have known, could have expected it, but when he came in a few weeks after Christmas holding hands with a beautiful dark haired women, well, Sam was absolutely crushed. It didn’t help that Rachelle hadn’t shown up that morning leaving Sam to handle both the register and the tables.

The girl ordered in perfect Italian and hurriedly said something that had Elio laughing uproariously. They sat down and sipped at their drinks, both looking beautiful with the sun catching in their dark hair.

Marzia, such a pretty name, so pretty that they fit together, Mariza and Elio. Elio and Marzia

But when she never came in again, Sam felt the traitorous rise of emotions he could do nothing to smother.

“What happened to your girlfriend?” Sam asked one day, his confidence at peek and the soft edge to Elio giving him the impression he might just answer.

“Who?” He seemed confused, then his brow unfurrowed and he laughed. “No, Marzia is a friend. She was visiting from Italy.”

“Cool,” Sam said, coolly, the feeling of hope trickling in.

“She was staying with my boyfriend and I,” He said casually, as if those words hadn’t just ripped Sam’s heart out of his chest and stomped all over it with Elio’s very fashionable boots.

~~~

Richard had bummed a cig off a man in the ballroom and was chain smoking out the small window in the mens’ bathroom, his shoe uncomfortably close to sliding into the toilet bowl. He stood up to tap the ash out and exhale, waving his hand in front of his face and tucking all his limbs up when the door cracked open.

“No one is in here, no feet,” Someone said, a man, voice soft and warm with what had to be the complementary wine. A set of laughter at the sound of the lock clicking into place.

The sound of smacking filled the bathroom, deep kissing, and something he could have gone all night without listening to. It was bad enough his wife wouldn’t touch him, but if he had to listen to these two make-out for half an hour because he couldn’t admit to his wife he was too much of a coward to quit smoking, he was going to be very cross with everyone involved.

“What are you thinking about?” Masculine, different, two men, he realized, and then wanted to curse his luck. He had no idea how long gay sex took, he could be stuck in this half rate hotel’s shoddy bathroom for hours if this is how long they took with foreplay. He tried to plug his ears to avoid their dirty talk which included declarations of love and a promise of forever and more bullshit, instead taking the last drag of his cig before tossing it out the window. More muffled whispering, laughter.

God, this was taking forever.

“Elio,” A sigh, young lovers then, on the cusp of throwing themselves into the monotony of monogamy. More muffled giggles. A sigh of pleasure.

“Oh for fucks sake, either get on with it or pass me another cig,” He blurted out, freezing when the room went quiet. He wanted to smack himself. His wife always said his least attractive quality was his anger.

“Elio!” One hissed, just as a delicate hand reached over the stall door, a cigarette pressed between his fingers. Richard took it and laughed.

“Cheers, mate.”

~~~

Elizabeth didn’t recognize him at first.

Oliver was always confident, sturdy and unyielding, it was why her parents had liked him so much, he seemed unshakable and in total control of everything around him. For all of his charisma and charm, he was also refined, a perfect statue if you ignored the fact is seemed as if he was always holding his breath.

That’s why seeing him play tussle with a man in the middle of the supermarket was a bit of a shock.

He pressed the boy’s side, throwing his arm around his shoulders and laughing into his hair. The boy, man really, was trying fruitlessly to look at labels, giggling and poking Oliver in the stomach. When he looked up, Elizabeth guiltily hid behind the stacked cans of baked beans to avoid being seen, peeking back around to watch Oliver slowly meander around the other aisle, a list held lightly in his hand, his posture a relaxed pose of contentment.

It was like a poorly planned stealth mission, taking her basket and wandering down the aisle looking at products she wouldn’t buy to maybe talk to a boy she was hoping to never meet. She caught his eye, a slip on her part, and he smiled, bright and open with the enthusiasm of a child and the respectability of a man.

“Hello, are you also checking for the discounts on cream corn?” He asked, eyebrow raised in a sweet sense of humor. She didn’t even have to fake a laugh.

“Unfortunately, no,” She sighed, remembering Oliver telling her that she was a horrendous liar and that she was best when it came to telling the truth. “I am avoiding an ex.”

“That is very unfortunate,” He said, finally picking the can he wanted and placing it in the cart along with the rest of the items. Elizabeth spotted a sugary breakfast cereal, two cases of soda, a few bags of chips, and two whole bottles of wine. He noticed her gaze and flushed shyly.

“I’ve not yet learned the delicate art of cooking quite yet,” He sighed, the bravado stripped away in a single instance. It was light a lightbulb flash, and she wondered if this brilliance of spirit and softness of heart that was what finally pushed Oliver to the point where he would yell at his father in the middle of the deli on the day of their broken engagement.

“Do you have a crockpot?” She asked, vividly aware that he did because it had been hers that she had moved into Oliver’s apartment and then was too nervous to ever ask for back after the marriage fell through. He nodded, eyebrows scrunched together. “I have a great recipe for you to try.”

She wrote it down on the back of her groceries list, smiling at his confused grin and the twitchy way he played with his pendent around his neck. She handed it to him, laughing slightly when he unabashedly smiled at her, his whole face lit up like she had given him a treasured gift.

As the cashier rang her up, she thought perhaps she might take Olivier up on his offer to come over for dinner sometime.

~~~

It was the toothbrush that did it, placed in the little fish holder Elio’s mother had given him during of their trips back to Italy. The two toothbrushes sat right next to each other, carelessly tossed there the night before, as if they were not now going to cause Oliver to shake right out of his skin at the sight of them. It was a metaphor, it had to be, the two pieces of plastic resting together, a cosmic sign of cohabitation.

“Oliver!” Elio hissed, reaching for the towel thrown over the radiator to his side, a few inches out of reach. As if on autopilot, Oliver handed it over, his heart pounding in warmth completely independent of his brain. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Oliver said, watching Elio towel off, his smile turning sly.

“It’s never nothing,” He laughed, pressing soft kisses along Oliver’s jaw, marking out a pattern only he could see. The last time he had gotten a bit too excited and Oliver had to wear a scarf to his classes for a week to avoid ridicule from his students. He let it drop in favor of going to lounge on their bed.

Their bed. With the yellow sheets and the raggedy comforter they bought together tucked next to their pillows, separated and individual, because they each had a side in the bed they shared. In their bed.

Oliver walked slowly out into the living room. Elio’s piano took up half of the available space. Elio’s books had became their books, mixing and switching from a single bookcase to a pile on the floor to interwoven on table and chair and on selves across the house. Oliver’s piles of paperwork were interspersed with transcribed music, the fridge littered with notes from one of them to the other, every part of their lives stitched together in this apartment where they had been living for over ten years now.

The few pictures they had put up, tasteful and refined, had become more flamboyant and open. A large frame above the mantle was of Elio planning a wet kiss on Oliver’s cheek, blown up and mounted in a place where marriage photos might have gone if Elio had never walked back into his life. His mother and Elio on a bench in Central Park was shown next to a family photo of all of the Perlman’s plus Oliver, sitting around the table and smiling.

“Are you coming to bed, lover?” Elio giggled, the lines around his eye deepening in mirth. Even at thirty, he looked as vibrant as ever. They shared those crow’s feet from the Crema sun, just like everything else in their life. Maybe Elio might also share the graying hair around the temples. Oliver just nodded in response to the question, turning off the lights and reaching his hand out to tangle their fingers together as they moved down the hallway before pressing forward to exhale deeply into Elio’s freshly washed hair.

 _Oh yeah_ , he thought, _they shared their soap too._

**Author's Note:**

> Come hit me up on tumblr at whimper-soldier.tumblr.com


End file.
